Xbox pulls Gears video featuring a PS5 logo, 24 hours after announcing it as an exclusive

Some additional developments not captured by this article: Jeff Grubb says a source tells him there is a finished PS5 version of this game sitting on a drive somewhere that will now go unused. And second, an Xbox...sorry, XBOX exec said that (paraphrasing), "No, this decision wasn't made last minute. We decided this over a month ago but just wanted to keep it secret so it would be a fun surprise for gamers." So they definitely made this decision last minute.

I wonder if you could make a case for false advertising here.

How is this fun? 🤨

"Over a month ago" for a product that took 6+ years to develop basically means "we had 72 opportunities to clarify this and decided to forego 71 of those".

Also, not a marketing expert, but learning that my console or other players won't be able to play this game doesn't seem like a "fun surprise for gamers" to me. But then again, I don't get paid six figures for a marketing job, so what do I know.

People are allowed to reasonably make mistakes. This doesn’t reach the threshold for malice

Xbox console exclusive? They have the pre order still up on steam...

I don't see how. Lot's of games get announced and later cancelled and that's never seen as false advertisement. Even if the game releases, and there's only a PC/XBox version, you wouldn't buy that and then sue Microsoft because you can't play it on PS5 and if you don't buy it you don't have a case.

When they say "console exclusive", they mean among the consoles it will exclusively arrive on Xbox and nothing else.

Exactly. When the process takes 6 years, throwing it all out a month before release is essentially last minute - and that's assuming you take them at their word, which I really don't.

Its just a shame to know the devs will have poured so much time into the PS5 version just to have the finished product sit on a drive somewhere unreleased (assuming it hasn't been destroyed instead to prevent it ever being leaked).

a "fun decision"? what's so fun about gatekeeping a video game smh

Oh hooray. Let’s go _backwards_ in time.

Sony, Microsoft, you fucking dipshits. The RAMpocalypse is making hardware a premium and you’re going back to the hardware exclusivity nonsense?

Neither of these console companies have made good decisions in the past year.

Sony is fucking up big time with all kinds of stuff they're doing, like paying 3.6 billion for Bungie and then throwing their weight behind a game that nobody wants and nobody likes instead of the game that made Bungie what it is. Then Sony jacked up the price of PlayStation Plus and announced that they're no longer supporting PC with single player games. I have zero faith in Sony to make the right decisions anymore.

And now Xbox is pulling their shit with this exclusivity crap. Exclusivity doesn't make me want to go out and buy your console. It makes me want to avoid the console and everything related to you. There are plenty of games that won't be wrapped up in this bullshit that I'll be playing instead.

A devkit with that version is absolutely gonna show up on eBay at some point in the next 20 years.

Until its eventually done all it can, then it releases on others to get some more money.